Trump considers run for president in 2012

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Donald Trump boots contestants off his TV show with a famous two-word catch phrase: “You’re fired.” He may want the chance to say the same to President Barack Obama.

The real-estate tycoon with the comb-over hairdo and in-your-face attitude plans to decide by June whether to join the field of GOP contenders competing in 2012 to make the Democratic incumbent a one-term president.

Trump insists he’s serious. He rejects skeptics’ claims that he’s using the publicity to draw viewers to “Celebrity Apprentice,” the NBC reality program he co-produces and hosts.

“The ratings on the show are through the roof. I don’t need to boost the ratings,” Trump told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “But the country is doing so badly. I wish there was someone in the Republican field I thought would be incredible because that’s what we need right now.”

Trump is prepared to spend as much as $600 million of his personal fortune on the race. “Part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”